Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, a man who survived by himself for almost five
years on an uninhabited Pacific island off the coast of Chile, Jules Verneís page-turner
The Mysterious Island is a tale of five men and a dog who escape Civil War Richmond
in a balloon during a storm and land on a faraway and uncharted island where they must
overcome natureís harsh elements to create from scratch a civilization for themselves.

Currently available only in an abridged 1970s translation and, in full, only in a dated
nineteenth-century translation that is stuffy and limp, turning the muscular, breathless
tone of the original into something overwrought and melodramatic, The Mysterious
Island is restored here to its original robustness in Jordan Stumpís striking new
rendition. This major re-presentation also features an Introduction by Caleb Carr, and
over eighty illustrations reprinted from the original 1875 French edition.  from
the jacket